I guess I should have acted surprised, but when I saw Macy standing over the body sprawled in the snow, the fifth body in as many weeks, I was justifiably annoyed. Like, wow, that charming young ski instructor was blackmailing the resort’s accountant, and that’s why the ski lift malfunctioned, sending him to his death? And the only one who knew the accountant had a background in mechanical engineering was Macy, for some reason?
Of course she did. Never mind that the whole reason we flew to Aspen for the weekend was to get away from the “Macy Livingstone: Amateur Detective” sideshow. Heaven forbid I should want a couple days focused on something else, like, um, me. After all, I’m just the bride.
Geoffrey says I should let it go, but older men are so obtuse about these things. It’s not like he’s doing any of the wedding planning. He didn’t think about how to arrange the banquet tables at our engagement party so his children Tiffany and Gareth could be up front but out of my eyeline — they’re still mad about their inheritance going to our new summer villa in Provence. And he wasn’t devastated when his Aunt Ruth was found bobbing in the hotel pool like the Champagne cork we never got to pop. Well, he was sad, but not like I was. She had already bought the silver thumbprint table service off our registry — I can’t relist it and the cops won’t release it from evidence for the “ongoing investigation.”
The police were doing a fine job, by the way, before Macy got involved. They would have figured it out eventually. I had almost gotten everyone back into the ballroom when I noticed Macy — my Maid of Honor — had that weird look on her face that told me she had noticed a misplaced teacup or heard a familiar song that somehow exposed the motive for the crime, and my heart sank. Goddamned Macy with her eye for details — great for helping you pick out table settings but a real pain in the ass otherwise. Who knew Aunt Ruth was about to cut Geoffrey’s second cousin — who owed vast sums of money to his exotic pet broker— out of her will?
And the news stories didn’t even mention me! It was all, “Macy Livingstone, crime-fighting ingenue,” this and “Livingstone, most recently known for exonerating the Belgian attaché” that. Now it’s “Livingstone, who tricked the accused’s own tamarind into implicating him in the crime.” Jesus Christ.
Naturally, the cousin had also ordered off the registry already. Flatware. Our first dinner party at the villa is going to be dismal.
That’s when I knew: She was out of the bridal party.
In retrospect, I should have told her before the bachelorette trip to Nashville. But she’d already paid for her tickets, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. A little bit of a joke there, since of course a promising country music star was found strangled with a guitar string on the aft deck of the General Jackson Showboat River Cruise and Lunch Buffet, and of course it happened right before my speech.
Screams, police boat sirens, etc. Sigh.
Honestly, if she hadn’t gone off to talk to the grizzled riverboat detective who (of course) had heard all about the toeless tourist who washed ashore at the beach resort in Puerto Rico last year (some girls’ trip that was), leaving me to finish that pitcher of mimosas by myself, we could have avoided a lot of drama. Yes, I was the one screaming, “If you don’t get your ass back to the buffet and do your job as my Maid of Honor, I swear to God there is going to be another murder on this boat,” but she knew she had it coming.
And who ended up in jail? Yes, fine, the country music singer’s girlfriend’s husband/producer, but also me. Me, the bride.
So can you blame me for not standing around to ooh and ahh today as the governor of Colorado pins a medal of commendation to Macy’s sweater in front of the lodge’s mammoth fireplace? Could you really call me a Bridezilla for kicking her out of the wedding when all I really want to do is preserve my peace? Am I really the toxic one just because I don’t want to share my big day with Macy … and whatever corpse she inevitably stumbles over?
At least I don’t have to worry about her randomly popping up at the wedding. We’re going to have it at Geoffrey’s family’s private clifftop estate. It was his daughter Tiffany’s idea. She seems to be warming to me as her new stepmother. I plan to really savor my special day and take some alone time just before the ceremony to walk along the steep cliffs overlooking the ocean. I love Macy, I do, but I’m only going to get married twice, three times, tops, and everyone’s attention should be on the bride on her wedding day. I can’t wait to finally be the thing everyone’s talking about.
Linda Stansberry is a writer who lives in Eureka. Yes, she adores Murder She Wrote.
This article appears in ‘A Big Heart’.